[Elsewhere] Amazon ES Discounts

monkeyhanger

Dunc: Depends where they came from. If you're in the UK, chances are they were despatched from a warehouse in Milton Keynes and never left the UK, so 2/3 days isn't abnormal. Seems a bit of a con to pay international Amazon postage for something that was sent and received within 1 country.

SWAT_Strachan

Dunc: Depends where they came from. If you're in the UK, chances are they were despatched from a warehouse in Milton Keynes and never left the UK, so 2/3 days isn't abnormal. Seems a bit of a con to pay international Amazon postage for something that was sent and received within 1 country.

My Skiff came from Milton Keynes as well, but I ordered it from Amazon.es. If you ordered it from the UK site, you'd be paying around £35 (delivered) for it, where as from the Spanish site, you'll only pay about £22 (delivered). So to be honest, I can live with the international shipping (which was cheaper than the domestic shipping anyway), bearing in mind that the items from the UK site are all from third-party sellers, not Amazon itself.

jgadget

I just tried to order something from amazon.es, since it seemed pretty good value.
Right at the end of the process, as I was about to confirm, I noticed that the price had jumped a bit.
20% was added on for taxes, which reduced the saving to nothing, when postage was taken into consideration.
Has anybody else seen this?

Note that I'm in the UK.

pmercik

^ VAT is pretty low in Spain (17% i believe) so the final price for other countries is a little bit higher

mountebank

Looking at the invoice I received from Amazon.es, the charging works in a different way:
a) Price before tax - in this case without 20% added
b) Shipping - around €6
c) Interim total, before taxes - a) and b)
d) Taxes - 20% of c)
e) Final total - c) + d)

I save nearly £8.

jgadget

I've just checked back on my only other order from amazon.es.
The prices published on the website were the prices with tax, so the invoice shows what I would expect.
Let's say their website had a price of 90 Euros for an item, with 9 Euros postage, the invoice would show 75 Euros as the pre-tax price, and 7.5 Euros as the pre-tax postage. Then, with 20% tax added, we get back up to 90 Euros + 9 Euros postage.

That was a couple of days ago.

Now, the price on the website appears to be the pre-tax price.
So, for the same 90 Euro item, I would be invoiced for 108 Euros + postage.

mountebank

Yes, you're right jgadget, it must have changed in the last day or two.

Since Amazon.es is often providing deals that work out to be 20-30% RRP, even with shippng factored in, then adding 20% onto the advertised prices during order processing kills it for me.

What a shame I didn't pick up that €67 9500. I'll have to wait to see it 30% off elsewhere.

tvih

Ugh, Amazon.es indeed has a nasty way of messing around with the prices via taxes. Shady stuff. Compared to amazon.it their shipping prices (to Finland, at least) seem lower - say, Death Star is 40 euros shipping from .it, and 12 euros from .es. But because of the tax everything's expensive from .es.

monkeyhanger

Is it not illegal to display the pre-tax prices as "the" price in the EU unless you are specifically buying items that could be obtained without paying tax, such as building materials for someone in the trade etc?

pmercik

it seems that amazon.es shows the prices including the VAT as it had used to.

jgadget

Ah great, thanks.
I'll consider another order again now.
It seems that now the price still climbs a bit, but only because they first knock off their 18% tax, before adding on the UK VAT of 20%.
Much more palatable than adding our UK 20% on top of their 18%.

monkeyhanger

Jgadget: Not sure why they would knock off their VAT at 18% and then add ours at 20%. You pay VAT at the rate of the selling country, within the EU. If France all of a sudden dropped their VAT rate to 10% you could buy anything from there and have it dhipped to any other EU country, paying only 10% VAT.

MrBerre

Jgadget: Not sure why they would knock off their VAT at 18% and then add ours at 20%. You pay VAT at the rate of the selling country, within the EU. If France all of a sudden dropped their VAT rate to 10% you could buy anything from there and have it dhipped to any other EU country, paying only 10% VAT.

Amazon disagrees: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200792760

VAT is charged on sales by Amazon.co.uk within the European Union (EU). In accordance with the laws governing members of the EU, Amazon.co.uk is obliged to charge VAT on all orders delivered to destinations in member countries of the EU. In general, VAT is charged in accordance with the local legislation in each member state.

The Recommended Retail Price (RRP) and/or price displayed for goods sold by Amazon.co.uk are inclusive of UK VAT. However, your final price may differ depending on the actual VAT rate that applies to your order. For orders to other EU countries, the UK VAT amount will be deducted and the applicable VAT rate for the destination country will be added. Your final price during checkout will reflect the correct VAT rate for the destination country of your order.

Hardrada

Jgadget: Not sure why they would knock off their VAT at 18% and then add ours at 20%. You pay VAT at the rate of the selling country, within the EU. If France all of a sudden dropped their VAT rate to 10% you could buy anything from there and have it dhipped to any other EU country, paying only 10% VAT.

False in this case. For small (international) sellers that might be true however once your sales to another EU member country exceeds a certain value (this changes from country to country as it's dependant on local legislation - but usually it's in the range of 30.000 to 100.000 EUR / year) the seller has to register and pay VAT directly to the authorities at the destination country. I'm sure Amazon is well over that threshold.

tvih

Yeah, seems the price calculation works correctly now. And order which showed like 500 euros in confirmation screen yesterday now shows only a bit over 400 euros. So it seems that at least yesterday VAT got applied twice - I guess it applied both Spanish + Finnish VATs. For what reason, beats me.

iBart

Hi there!
Couple days ago I've ordered 4 sets - order total ~285 EUR,
I've checked out today with the same items and... 245 EUR !!!
Prices were also the same.

I' waiting for an answer from CS, obviously there was some big problem
(double VAT I guess).


Now everything is working perfectly...

mountebank

Looks like it. And remember, it's not just the 20% being added to the cost of the sets, (I think) the way Amazon.es calculate the final cost is also to apply the 20% to the shipping.

monkeyhanger

I thought the whole point of EU free trade was to pay tax in the country of sale origination if there is no middle market involved, pay tax in one country and it doesn't have to be paid again or on different terms to the seller country as long as both countries are in the EU.

If you have to pay the destination's own rate of VAT (and not the country of origination's) then surely the only price you should be able to see on Amazon.es before inputting your delivery details in would be the pre-VAT price as the VAT part would be variable depending upon where it was sent? This is certainly not the case for anything I have bought from Amazon.es or Amazon.it - the price seen on the website prior to logging in, putting it in my basket and applying a UK despatch address was the price I paid inclusive of VAT (excluding postage which is dependent upon destination). The same has been seen for many transactions I have made for companies within the EU (including a load of Spanish tiles last year).

iBart

Indeed. First price at the check out was full (with taxes), then it was collected again.
Now all calculations at the check out are O.K.

I was a little confused before, but I've ordered it anyway - it was still a good price,
and now when all is normal again I hope that I get my return...


* I will post the Amazon.es answer when I get it.

Hardrada

I thought the whole point of EU free trade was to pay tax in the country of sale origination if there is no middle market involved, pay tax in one country and it doesn't have to be paid again or on different terms to the seller country as long as both countries are in the EU.

If you have to pay the destination's own rate of VAT (and not the country of origination's) then surely the only price you should be able to see on Amazon.es before inputting your delivery details in would be the pre-VAT price as the VAT part would be variable depending upon where it was sent? This is certainly not the case for anything I have bought from Amazon.es or Amazon.it - the price seen on the website prior to logging in, putting it in my basket and applying a UK despatch address was the price I paid inclusive of VAT (excluding postage which is dependent upon destination). The same has been seen for many transactions I have made for companies within the EU (including a load of Spanish tiles last year).

VAT is a tax on consumption. So by general rule it should be paid where the goods are "consumed", that means where the buyer is located. To make things easier if you are not a huge volume seller then you can pay VAT at your own country by your own country's rates. But if you surpass a certain threshold then you have to register and pay VAT at the destination countries. And the point of EU free trade is that there are no customs at all, you can buy stuff from Spain just like from your local supermarket.

Amazon.es shows their Spanish retail price with Spanish VAT added, and I think it's fine as it is. Maybe a disclaimer that foreigners will be invoiced with their own country's VAT wouldn't hurt, but that's about it. Most EU countries' VAT rates are in the 17 to 25% range so the difference is not that big either. If it bothers you just keep an eye out for the final product price at the last step before payment.

monkeyhanger

Hadrada: My point was that when I buy, my price does not change from the website advertised price to a "UK destination" price once I log in and make it clear I am a UK customer with a UK delivery address. I would take this to mean that I have in fact paid the Spanish rate of VAT on my purchase that I receive in the UK. This applied for recent purchases of Jabbas Palace, Skiff (from Amazon.es) and Imperial Shuttle (Amazon.it). If I am supposed to be getting charged the UK rate of VAT on a purchase from Amazon.es or Amazon.it then this has not been happening.

Hardrada

It's indeed a bit weird if it's really so. Though the VAT is almost the same, so there shouldn't be any noticeable price change anyhow:

Spain - 18%
Italy - 21%
UK - 20%

mountebank

My Amazon.es purchases, to the UK, have all had exactly 20% included as VAT.

rolyateel

just placed my 2nd order with amazon.es...VAT is 20%
Still cheap though, bought £135 worth of goods for €141 (approx £114), and they have all LOTR sets in stock as far as I can see.
Only bought Weathertop though.

mcvitie

glad i ordered Jabbs Palace last night, its gone up 50 euros!

princedraven

^ No it hasn't that is from a 3rd party, if you select Amazon the price is still 99 euros.

iBart

Now it's unavailalbe again. But soon it will be back in stock (1-2 weeks).

monkeyhanger

You can make a decent sized Palace with 2 sets and part the figs out from set 2 to get most (if not all) of your money back on it. I put a pic up of my almost complete one somewhere on this site. The original set is like a beach hut for Jabba.

hallows81

can everyone speak spanish or is there a translation button somewhere? I can't understand the site to work out if I am saving anything

roxio

^use Google chrome browser

hallows81

^ many thanks

mountebank

I'd guess that most can speak little or no Spanish and rely on the fact that the check-out procedure is the same as for Amazon.uk. If you follow this procedure, you'll see that a webpage is presented to the customer setting out what the cost will be with everything factored in and it is only after confirming this that the transaction occurs.

Edit: Or some clever people will use a browser in which machine translation can be applied.

hallows81

all back in stock.
I decided against jabbas palace as it is not something I want (couldn't work out if i parted it out if I'd make more than the £85 it would cost)
I did pick up a desert skiff, the republic starfighter, The uruk hai army and the lovely new 3-1 beach house all for €128 which should come in at £100.

luckyruss

Tempted to get some LOTR now given they're not available in Argos, but I couldn't work out if they were such a good deal, relative to the RRPs of the SW sets at least. Any thoughts?

hallows81

They all work out slightly less than UK prices except helms deep which at €125 is pretty much the same as UK.

I think mines of moria and weathertop are the better deals of the LOTR sets but from what I could tell SW sets seemed to be bigger savings especially jabbas palace which is only about £80 without postage.

iBart

Pay attention to possible double tax at check out, my case is still in progress...
From time to time on Amazon.es web site they have some technical problems.

iBart

Case still open... Over two weeks now.